CUSTOMER DELIGHT

Cheques meant for someone else get deposited in your account or vice versa, dividend warrants go astray, account balances on the ATM terminal are wrong and overstate or understate the actual by thousands of rupees, cheques get bounced and are re-credited with no explanation and the Internet banking facility is so full of glitches that one can never be sure how far one can trust the replies one gets on the paperless mail.  None of this is mere speculation or hypothesis but based on actual happenings. If one cannot be sure of reasonably immediate attention and a fair hearing from bank officials, one should not be surprised to see irate customers bad-mouthing the bank.

Has the combination of high technology and competition in financial services in particular served us well as customers? Has it truly introduced a service orientation amongst those staff who manage the various points of contact between the company and the general public? The answers to these questions depend upon your personal experience with institutions such as banks, hotels, airlines, railways, which in turn seems to be largely a matter of luck.

Global competition today is fierce, and customers who are merely satisfied with the products and services of an organization will soon be lured away by competition.  If you need to stand up to the competition and retain your customer base, you need to move beyond “satisfaction” to discover and fill each customer’s essential needs.  So customer service is steadily being attempted to be replaced by customer delight.

Two most fundamental requirements for creating delight—a thorough understanding of customers’ expectations and the commitment of service providers. Companies who fail to make customer delight a part of their business strategy will quickly be overrun by those who embrace this concept and make it an essential part of their daily lives. That means that not only organizations, but also every department within them must understand the principles of what delights their customers and eliminate anything that causes pain.

The trouble with banks which catch the limelight with high key advertising and glossy, plush offices are the ones that find the smaller savings bank account holder a thankless job to deal with, from their business point of view and at times deal with him in a cavalier way. The returns on the time spent on the individual customer must seem trivial in comparison with the lucrative large corporate accounts. Even less attractive is the prospect of dealing with the daily aches and pains of the retail customers due to myriad faults and slips that seem inevitable in transactions running into millions.

Some companies measure customer satisfaction daily and rewards its staff monthly for exceeding customer satisfaction targets.  Short term cost reduction and profit maximization decisions often outweigh investment in service levels and customer satisfaction, turning out to be a myopic view.

If you are serious about the importance of satisfied customers, you need to have objective measures of the extent to which you are succeeding.  Feedback from customer contact staff is very useful, but it may not be objective.  Monitoring complaints is essential.  Not all dissatisfied customers complain, and even if they did, a complaints measure provides no indication of the extent to which you are satisfying and retaining the customer who are for complaining.  It is also an established fact that satisfied customer do defect.  Being a good service provider alone is not enough.  Today’s customer decide whether the value delivered by your business is better than they could provide elsewhere.

A customer satisfaction programme must be launched in every unit/branch of the organization, which will enable to: 1) understand how customers perceive your organization and whether your performance meets their expectations. 2) Identify priorities for improvements in performance. 3) Pinpoint “understanding gaps” where your own staff have a misunderstanding of customers’ priorities or their ability to meet customer’s needs. 4) Set goals for service improvement and monitor progress against a customer satisfaction index. 5) Benchmark your performance against that of other organization. 6) Increase profits through improved customer and loyalty and retention.

Satisfaction is customer’s perception that his expectations have been met or surpassed.  You buy something and you expect it to work properly.  If it does, you are satisfied.  If it does not, you are dissatisfied.  Now, it is up to the seller to find a way to fix the problem so that you can become satisfied. Satisfied customer buy more, and more often.  It is a simple truth.  Quality, service, satisfaction and retention all are important in a distinct way.  Your main goal should be to produce a satisfied and loyal customer who will stay with you over time.  Quality and service are the means to the ends of satisfaction and retention.  

Superior customer service and quality performance that result in customer delight can only be provided by competent, quality people.  After hiring, train them extensively to provide superior customer service.  Once trained, compensate them well. One may be aware of the costs associated with losing a customer and acquiring the new ones.  The same formula holds goods true for recruiting, hiring and training new staff.  The acquisition costs can be staggering.  Finally empower your people to make decisions and do the right thing to satisfy your customer. The staff should not look for you or a manager every time a customer asks a question.  There are stories about empowered employees whose decisions that were against the company policy but that satisfied and retained a customer, with the end result of both the customer and the business winning.

At times, we come across instances, where a few  relationship managers, stressed with approaching deadlines, give false promises, unable to deliver, ultimately lose customers.  No doubt they are able to grab the next.  In the bargain, professionalism and reputation become the primary casualty. Also. If you need to deliver delight, it is not only the role of the Relationship Managers and their support Customer Service Officers, but those working in the back office should also show same level of zeal and commitment.  Every back office employee should initially be posted in the branch to have a first hand experience of the customer expectations and the responsive service that accompanies to make a perfect harmony.